China has blamed Japan for current tensions in the East China Sea saying there's no room for compromise over disputed islands.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi says China will not give up one inch of its territory, in line witht the government's hard line approach over regional tensions.

In a press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress, he said there was no room for compromise when asked about strained relations with Japan.

Both countries claim a set of islands - administered by Japan as the Senkaku Islands, but which China calls the Diaoyu Islands - and some analysts fear this could lead to a regional conflict.

Wang Yi says the current tension between Tokyo and Beijing was different to England and Germany before World War One.

He restated Premier Li Kequaing's line that China needed to safeguard the victory of World War Two.

Wang Yi says that Japan needed to make a clean break with the past.

When it comes to smaller countries he says China would not bully them, but nor would it accept their unreasonable demands.

Japan sends jets

On Sunday, Japan scrambled military jets to counter three Chinese military planes that flew near Japanese airspace.

One Y-8 information gathering plane and two H-6 bombers flew over the East China Sea, travelling in international airspace between southern Japanese islands.

They went to the Pacific Ocean before returning towards China on the same route, according to a spokesman at the Joint Staff of the Ministry of Defence.

"They flow above public seas, and there was no violation of our airspace," he said, declining to release more details about the incident.

Chinese government ships and planes have been seen off the disputed islands numerous times since Japan nationalised them in September 2012, sometimes within the 12 nautical-mile territorial zone.

Philippines defends its territory

The Philippines says it has the right to defend every inch of its territory, according to President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Herminio Coloma.

He was responding to Wang Yi's comments over the disputed islands.

Although Mr Coloma was referring to Japan, which has its own territorial dispute with China, his remarks could also cover China's other territorial dispute with the Philippines and other countries over parts of the South China Sea.

"It is the right of every country to defend its national territory. That is also the principle we are following," Mr Coloma told reporters, commenting on the Chinese minister's remarks.

Mr Coloma says the Philippines was basing its position on the principles of international law like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS.

The Philippines and China, along with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam are all claimants to parts of the South China Sea, a major sea lane and rich fishing ground which is believed to sit on vast mineral deposits.

The Philippines has also expressed growing concern at the increased aggressiveness of the Chinese in pressing their claim to almost all of the waters, even up to the coasts of its neighbours.

The Philippine government has sought UN arbitration under UNCLOS to settle the dispute but China has rejected the move.

Last month, the Philippines lodged a protest after the Chinese coastguard allegedly attacked Filipino fishermen off a disputed South China Sea shoal with water cannon on January 27.